Hunting Dinosaurs

By Adam Heggenstaller, Shooting Illustrated Editor-in-Chief

Somewhere in the darkest corner of the tepid, black-water depths lay a monster. The few feet of white nylon rope we could see stretched taut beneath the still surface pointed to its lair. Beyond that, the connection to our prehistoric quarry disappeared in the murk, leaving us to ponder aloud in quavering voices about the size of what was on the other end of the line.

My hunting partner brushed a spider from his shoulder and checked the chamber of his handgun. We were about to tangle with a reptile having cold-blooded ties to T-Rex and a maw lined with teeth larger than our thumbs. Suddenly the skinny aluminum hull separating us from the water seemed to offer little security.

Hunting alligators is an experience that borders on the surreal. Familiar oaks and hickories are replaced by primeval palms and waterlogged cypresses draped with old man's beard. Instead of quietly hiking along a ridge, you skim through a swamp in an airboat that makes so much noise you have to shout to communicate. You trade your parka and boots for a T-shirt and sandals, scent-eliminating spray for heavy doses of DEET. You engage the game in a tug of war, muscling it from the tea-colored depths until it rolls along the boat and presents a fleeting opportunity to pierce its walnut-sized brain with a hastily aimed bullet.

That's how they do it in Florida, at least on private land, and in the swamps and bayous across the Deep South. Gator populations are strong there, ever-expanding; in some places the menacing critters cause humans to fret by swimming in their pools and snacking on their poodles. Hunting techniques vary. Snagging hooks and bang-sticks are used, but often it's a combination of fishing and trapping and hand-to-hand combat with a point-blank shot in the final moments that ends water-sprayed struggles. Taking full advantage of a gator's relish for rotting flesh, hunters skewer chunks of putrid beef lung on massive hooks hung a couple feet above the water. They tie the hooks to trees with a length of sturdy rope, and leave them for the gators to find. Then it's a matter of bringing the gators to the boat for a shot.

We already had a half-dozen gators piled by our feet like logs—their mouths bound shut with liberal wraps of duct tape—by the time our host took us to a channel where he had set a line for a particularly large one the night before. Now, with the hook gone and the rope pulled toward the bottom, it was time to do battle.

The first few feet of cord came easy, as if the gator had chewed through the line and was gone. But then there was steady resistance, though it was not accompanied by the usual frenzied thrashing brought by the gators we had fought earlier. This one stayed deep, calculating its next move, giving in to the tug from above until it could get close enough to stop the annoyance. Six feet from the boat, the gator slowly rose to the surface, its head and jaws larger than our chests. One powerful swipe of its tail, and it would be in our laps. My partner was quick on the trigger to prevent this, his three shots hitting the gator squarely in its leathery skull behind its yellow eyes. We were both shaking slightly, mostly from adrenaline but also maybe a bit of fear. Like the fossilized skeletons of its ancestors displayed in the Smithsonian, a 12-foot alligator is scary even when it's dead.

Tips to Lay Out Ol' Tom

Fly-down time at dawn

is, quite naturally, assumed by many hunters to be the best time all day to bag a tom. Trouble is, the hen or hens that old fella is visiting at that time of day may not let him off the hook long enough to pay attention to your calls and come anywhere near your setup. But during the peak of the breeding season, those hens are apt to visit their nests by noon. Your best shot at calling him close may come then, when old tom is lonely for attention.

Many times a tom hangs up

not because of an obstacle, but because he's walked far enough toward your call and, having not seen a hen, walks away. Your mistake: setting up too far outside that all-important range and never seeing him. When you call, be sure of a good line of sight through terrain and vegetation, and depending on cover, try to get within 100 yards of him before plopping down.

If you hear a gobbler moving away from you,

don't waste more time and breath trying to call him back. Instead, get up and hustle in a wide circle around him. If you need to hear him for reference, use a locator call. When you feel you are ahead of him, quickly set up and give a series of aggressive yelps with a call you haven't used yet. Many times this "fresh hen" tactic will prove successful.

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Like the fossilized skeletons of its ancestors displayed in the Smithsonian, a 12-foot alligator can be scary even when it's dead—something that Shooting Illustrated's Adam Heggenstaller learned in person during a gator hunt in Florida. Read More »

The 2011 Ram Laramie Longhorn sets a new standard for luxury trucks. From high-end exterior treatments to rich... Read More »

1976

The year that Sumner, Mo., erected a statue of "Maxie" to commemorate being the "Wild Goose Capital of the World."

65 Feet

Maxie sports a 65-foot wingspan while resting on a cinderblock building in a community park.

4

The number of cackling subspecies.

fast fact

Researcher Laura Boester at the University of Toledo found that fox squirrels hear over a noise-frequency range roughly 2.5 times greater than humans, with more capability to detect higher-frequency sounds.